


Time Still

by Asphodelia



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon), Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Kaldur-centric, prison visits
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-07-05 15:43:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15866676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asphodelia/pseuds/Asphodelia
Summary: “Why are you here, boy?”Kaldur wasn't sure, but 'because you're my father' seemed like at least part of it.





	1. One

The first time Kaldur had seen Black Manta in person without his helmet had been surreal. The shadowed, sinister, menace to Atlantis had suddenly been a man – a villain still, but also a person. The shift probably wouldn’t have seemed so significant if it hadn’t also been the shift from ‘Black Manta is my father’ to ‘this man is my father’. 

Looking at him now – defiant and proud even in handcuffs and prison beige - Kaldur’ahm felt a different kind of shift. A shift perhaps in how Manta was beginning to see his son, now that there were no lies between them.

“Why are you here, boy?”

Manta was the first to break the silence that had permeated the small, grey, visiting room at Belle Reve. 

“I did not wish to leave things as they were. With violence.” 

It was the answer Kaldur had composed days ago, when he first decided that he was going to visit Manta. It was also true, although he had no idea as to how he would rather leave things between them. He had been honest when he said he was conflicted about fighting his father. Their relation was not a mere piece of biological trivia, as he had told himself going into his undercover mission. Perhaps it would have been, if that’s how Manta had seen it as well, but he had always seemed to think of Kaldur’ahm as his son in more than just a technical sense. From the outside it may have looked like Kaldur was just a higher ranking minion to Black Manta, but Kaldur had been able to tell even very early on that that was not the case. 

Black Manta had cared for him, perhaps even deeply.

That didn’t make him a good person, of course. You can be a monster and still care for your own child. Still, once he had opened his mind to the idea that Black Manta was capable of something other than hatred and destruction he had begun to see a strange kind of honor in him. He did not allow anyone to look down on him. He was a natural leader – even if his men weren’t terrified of him, which they rightly were, it wasn’t hard to imagine him in a position where others followed his lead. If he started something, he saw it through.

He didn’t seem like the type of person to walk out of a child’s life, at least not due to being irresponsible. 

Kaldur had spent a long time trying not to let his mind follow that train of thought. It would have been a potentially fatal thing to dwell on while he was undercover. Asking difficult questions could have negatively impacted his mission, made Manta doubt his loyalties. He wasn’t on a mission now, though, so he supposed he could ask whatever he liked. Perhaps that was why he was here.

“I have nothing further to offer you, Kaldur’ahm.” Black Manta – voice both level and bitter – was again the one to break the silence as it begun to stretch. “I had been prepared to give you everything I had to offer, and you did not want it. So tell me, boy, what is it you do want? Why are you here?”

Kaldur opened his mouth and found himself at a loss for words. ‘Because you’re my father’ was on the tip of his tongue, but it felt inappropriate to invoke that claim right after betraying the man. Which was ridiculous because Manta was the villain and Kaldur did not feel guilty for anything he had done to bring him to justice. Still, he thought that Manta might scorn that relation now and Kaldur realized that he didn’t want to give him an opening to do so. He did not want to hear him say that Kaldur was no longer his son. 

The questions Kaldur had been considering asking – ‘Why did you leave me? Why didn’t I know you?’ – didn’t manage to leave his mouth either. His mother had confirmed that Manta did know about him, but that she hadn’t wanted him to be a part of his life. Kaldur did not fault her for that; it was probably a good decision. Still, if there was one thing Kaldur knew for certain about his father, it was that nobody made decisions for him or took anything from him without him allowing it. Kaldur couldn’t imagine the mother of his child would be an exception to that. If he had wanted to defy her wishes on the subject he would have. Her living in Atlantis would have made it difficult, but it wasn’t as if Black Manta hadn’t breached the boarders of Atlantis on several occasions before. 

Not that Kaldur wished anything had been different. He had spent enough time acting like the son he imagined Black Manta might have raised to be grateful he was not that person. That’s why he couldn’t muster up the anger that a different son confronting a different absent father might have. Everything had turned out as it should have. So if he wasn’t angry, if he was even grateful his life hadn’t played out differently, why did he still feel like he’d been rejected? 

Kaldur realized he had paused a moment too long. He had thought earlier that the way Manta saw him seemed to be shifting, and the last thing he wanted to be in the older man’s eyes was a fool. 

“I want nothing from you.” Kaldur’ahm answered factually, without a trace of bitterness. It still caused Manta’s eyes to harden. Kaldur wasn’t sure what his misstep had been, but he wasn’t going to pay it any mind. He might not know why or what he wanted out of it, but he was here to have a conversation with his father and he was done sitting in passive silence while Manta seemed to judge him.

“How are you settling in?”

“Gloating?” Manta raised an eyebrow, seemingly surprised.

“Asking.” 

“I am not ‘settling in’, boy.” Manta laughed darkly. “I would sooner bite off my own hand than ‘settle in’ somewhere where I am treated like cattle.” 

“Then it’s a shame it’s not only your hand that’s caught.” Kaldur had more restraint than to let a comment like that simply slip out, and he was not a generally sarcastic person. Manta was never going to respect him if he met his bitterness with only small talk and niceties, though. “That was gloating.” 

Black Manta looked fiercely angry for a moment and Kaldur was sure he was about to lash out, but nothing came of it. A moment later a guard informed them that they were out of time for the visit. 

“Until next week, then.” Kaldur’ahm nodded to his father and stood to follow the guard out the door.

“You’re coming back?” 

The genuine disbelief in Manta’s voice made Kaldur feel bold enough to give the answer he’d wanted to give when he’d first been asked why he was here; to claim the relation he was still worried the older man would now scoff at.

“Of course. You are my father.”

Kaldur looked back at Manta as he spoke and was relieved to find there was no scorn or rejection in his eyes as he gazed back. What was there instead was a mystery.


	2. Two

It had been three months since Kaldur’ahm had started visiting his father in prison. He tried to come once a week, although it was not always possible. On one visit Kaldur had mentioned a mission he’d recently been on with King Orin and that had set Manta into enough of a rage that the guards had cut the visit short and Manta had refused to see him the following week. Kaldur had considered not returning after that, but he had. 

On another occasion, Black Manta had been unavailable for a visit because he was in solitary after apparently trying to gut Edward Nygma with a shiv made from melted uniform buttons. Nygma had survived, but he no longer tried to ask Manta any riddles and Manta was banned from laundry duty. Kaldur knew this because Manta had been in better spirits when he visited the following week and had told him all about it. 

Kaldur wasn’t sure if that was progress, if there was anything they were even progressing towards, or if he was making a huge mistake trying to build a relationship with this undoubtedly bad man.

They hadn’t had a visit in two weeks now because of complications on Kaldur’s end. First there had been a mission, and then he had just been…tired. He was always tired these days, what with Nightwing still on his ‘leave of absence’ and the criminal world destabilized by the fall of The Light. It seemed like every second tier villain was trying to make a name for his or herself. 

Working himself to exhaustion had never been a problem before, though. He’d collapse when his work was finally done and wake feeling especially refreshed and satisfied. No, the perpetual, growing, feeling of being run-down was not only due to his large workload. He always had a large workload. It was because he hadn’t had time to mourn Wally. 

He didn't feel he’d properly mourned Tula yet either. 

Tula’s death and learning the truth of his parentage had happened at close to the same time. It had been as if a sudden riptide had pulled him out of the life he knew and thrust him into unknown waters. He had needed time alone to mourn and to process, but he had never gotten it. He had left Nightwing a message saying he was taking some time for himself, but it had been too soon after that that he had been approached about the undercover mission with his father. They’d needed to act fast to stage his ‘falling out’ with the team.

There had obviously been no time to process during the mission. Then the mission itself – working so closely with his father, spying on him – had left him with even more to work through. He had told himself there would be time after, but then the loss of Wally had shaken them all again and Nightwing was the one who needed to take a leave. 

So, Aqualad had played the role of the strong one – the leader – and had once again put aside his own emotional exhaustion for the good of the team.

Visiting his father took a lot out of him too. Tiptoeing around the topics that would make Manta angry, censoring anything that might backfire on the team if he shared it with a villain, still not knowing what he wanted out of these meetings or if he should be bothering with them...it was a lot of work. Still, he kept coming back. He wasn’t sure why. He was still telling himself it was because Manta was his father and it felt like that mattered. Neither of them ever let their guards down, but Manta usually seemed pleased to see him – not that anybody who hadn’t spent a lot of time spying on him would be able to tell – and Kaldur liked that. 

“Long mission?” 

If was the first visit after the week Kaldur had skipped to try to spend the time centering himself. It hadn’t been enough time and Kaldur was feeling especially run down so he hoped this turned out to be one of their easy visits. One of the handful where they talked about something at least somewhat personal – Manta never wanted to reveal too much, and Kaldur couldn’t say anything he wouldn’t want a cellblock of potential enemies to learn – and nothing came up that pushed any of Manta’s buttons. Perhaps Kaldur could tell his father how tired he was? He’d get no sympathy from Manta, but he wouldn’t have to worry about making him worry the way he would with anyone else in his life. 

No. Manta would judge him for showing weakness. Kaldur knew he shouldn’t care what this man – this villain who hadn’t even raised him – thought of him, but he did. 

“Not long. Challenging. But you’ll have a new neighbour soon enough.” Kaldur had learned that Manta hated anything that could be interpreted as overlooking that he was in prison or that Kaldur had put him there. Finding ways to remind his father that he was aware of their reality tended to keep his temper more level. 

“You should have taken more time.”

Kaldur blinked. 

“No, we caught him, and his associates. Unless you know something you’d like to share?”

Manta offered a brief half-smile that anyone else probably would have missed. “No. More time after the mission, you’re straining yourself. Go home.” 

“What makes you say I’m straining myself?” There was an edge to Kaldur’s voice; he did not appreciate being ordered away. 

“I say it because it’s true. You’re exhausted, and you have been for a long time. I can tell.”

Kaldur supposed he hadn’t been the only one learning to read the other while he was undercover. The part of him that wanted to be known by his father was pleased, but the rational part of his brain – the part that would always see Black Manta for every awful thing he was outside of being his father – was unnerved. 

“There’s been a lot to do over the last few months.”

“Hm. There’d be less if you didn’t waste so much of yourself on babysitting.”

If Kaldur’ahm had been a bit more like some of his teammates he would have rolled his eyes. 

“I don’t babysit.” It would be pointless to explain his role in the team beyond that. Once Black Manta’s mind was made up it tended to stay that way. Kaldur kept talking anyways, and he knew he shouldn’t, but he was sick of worrying about Manta’s buttons in these visits. Normally he would have more restraint, but… “I don’t babysit, and I don’t blindly follow my king, and I am very much a free man. My own man.” 

“There it is! You’ve been sitting on that for a very long time, haven’t you?” Manta seemed amused, which was enough to push Kaldur over the edge from worn out and annoyed to angry. “I’ve been wondering when you’d get around to whatever ‘telling the old man off’ you’ve needed to get out of your system.”  
Kaldur realized he was right; he had been sitting on that for a long time. The idea that he was some kind of subservient doormat that didn’t think for himself was weaved into a lot of his interactions with Manta prior to learning about their relation, and he hadn’t cared before. Now he did. He wanted his father to know he wasn’t just some pawn. 

“This is amusing to you!?”

“I’m just glad you’re getting it off your chest. Come on, there must be more! I don’t respect your path, I wasn’t there for you, I’m generally a ruthless bastard. Let me have it, Kaldur.” Later, Kaldur would realize this was the first time since he’d been undercover that his father had used his preferred nickname. At the moment, he just wanted to wipe the smug, pleased, look off of Manta’s face.

“You don’t, you weren’t, and you are! But let’s stay focused on the first one for now. You act like you’re concerned with whether or not I think for myself, but you don’t know me, what makes you th –“

“I do know you. I admit that I was making an educated guess before, but now that I’ve spent time with you it’s confirmed my theory. You live mostly for others, for your team and for your _king_ ,” Manta practically spat the word. “and you’ve hardly spared a thought for what you want out of life.” 

“I played the dutiful pawn for most of our acquaintance. Perhaps that has given you a false impression.” 

“For having pulled off such a masterful con you seem to not realize why you were successful. You did not play the pawn for me, Kaldur. You came to me angry, you came to me wanting vengeance. It was not about serving me, it was about finding a means to take what you wanted. I thought that you would use me and my resources to rain havoc down on those who had failed you.” Black Manta almost sounded wistful. “It was everything I’d ever wanted for you.” 

“For me to be as angry and hateful as you are?”

“For you to pursue your own desires, regardless of the consequences. For you to be free.” 

“I am free!”

“You are not. You will grind yourself to dust for people who are not even worth your consideration, and you will delude yourself into thinking it was what you wanted.” The pleasure Manta had seemed to be taking in their argument evaporated, even as he smiled a cruel smile and leaned forwards over the metal table his hands were still shackled to. “Do you want to know what really sold your performance?”

Kaldur found himself morbidly curious, curious enough that he stayed silent even as he wanted to keep arguing.

“It wasn’t a performance at all. That angry boy that came to me looking for an outlet for his rage – he is 100% real and sitting in front of me as we speak.”

“I am _not_ –“

“The details are different. You don’t blame your allies, even if you should, but you are angry at the world, Kaldur. Angry you were lied to, angry that you lost that girl, angry that you cannot claim a spare moment to breath, and angry with me for probably a hundred reasons you won't confront. You act like you need nothing for yourself, because your truth would be uncomfortable and inconvenient for those around you. And yet you claim to be free.”

Kaldur couldn’t listen anymore. Manta was wrong. And yet, would his words cut so deeply if that were the case? He went to the door and knocked for the guard to let him out, as Black Manta chuckled darkly to himself. 

“Until next time, my son. Get a good night's sleep, hm?”

**Author's Note:**

> I just finished watching Young Justice on Netflix and I need so much closure.


End file.
